"Death or mutilation."
"I thought you guys could heal anything short of a death wound."
"Not if you shove burning metal into it. Fire purifies and stops the healing process, unless you reopen the wound."
"It works that way with vampires, too," I said.
"I didn't know that," he said, but not like he really cared.
"How have you risen to next in line to lead and not killed anyone? You had to fight a lot of duels to get to the top of the heap."
"Only the fight for Ulfric has to be to the death. All I had to do was beat them all."
"Which is why you take karate and lift weights, so you'll be good enough to beat them." We'd had this discussion before when I asked if lifting weights when you could bench press a small car was redundant. He'd replied, not if everyone you're fighting can lift a car, too. He had a point.
"Yes."
"But if you won't kill, then your threat doesn't have much bite, no pun intended."
"We're not animals, Anita. Just because this is the way it's always been in the pack doesn't mean things can't change. We are still people, and that means we can control ourselves. Dammit, there has to be a better way than slaughtering each other."
I shook my head. "Don't blame it on the animals. Real wolves don't kill each other for dominance."
"Only werewolves," he said. He sounded tired.
"I admire your goals, Richard."
"But you don't agree."
"No, I don't agree."
His voice came from the darkness out of the backseat. "Stephen doesn't have any wounds. Why was he screaming?"
My shoulders hunched, and I made myself sit up straight. I turned onto Old Highway 21, and tried to think of a delicate way to tell him, but there was nothing delicate about rape. I told him what I'd seen.
The silence from the backseat lasted a very long time. I was almost to the turnoff for his house when he said, "And you think if I'd killed a few people along the way, this wouldn't have happened?"
"I think they're more afraid of Raina and Marcus than they are of you, so yeah."
"If you back my threat with killing, it undermines everything I've tried to do."
"I love you, Richard, and I admire what you're trying to do. I don't want to undermine you, but if they touch Stephen again, I'll do what I said I'd do. I'll kill them."
"They're my people, Anita. I don't want them dead."
"They're not your people, Richard. They're just a bunch of strangers that happen to share your disease. Stephen is your people. Every shapeshifter who threw their support to you and risked Marcus's anger, they're your people. They've risked everything for you, Richard."
"When Stephen joined the pack, I was the one who told Raina she couldn't have him. I've always stood by him."
"Your intentions are good, Richard, but they didn't keep him safe tonight."
"If I let you kill for me, Anita, it's the same as doing it myself."
"I didn't ask your permission, Richard."
He leaned on the back of the seat, and I realized he wasn't wearing his seat belt. I started to tell him to put it on, but didn't. It was his car, and he could survive a trip through the windshield. "You mean if they take Stephen again, you'll kill them because you said you'd kill them, not for me."
"A threat's not worth anything if you aren't willing to back it up," I said.